2248 Les Miserables
and Robespierre.—‘The men of ‘93 were giants,’ said Marius
with severity. The old man held his peace, and uttered not a
sound during the remainder of that day.
Marius, who had always present to his mind the inflex-
ible grandfather of his early years, interpreted this silence
as a profound concentration of wrath, augured from it a hot
conflict, and augmented his preparations for the fray in the
inmost recesses of his mind.
He decided that, in case of a refusal, he would tear off his
bandages, dislocate his collar-bone, that he would lay bare
all the wounds which he had left, and would reject all food.
His wounds were his munitions of war. He would have Co-
sette or die.
He awaited the propitious moment with the crafty pa-
tience of the sick.
That moment arrived.